How Ironic: ‘Pennsyltucky’ GQP Senate Primary May Be Decided By … Mail-In Ballots! And Drop Boxes! (Updated)

Pennsyltucky: “Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama in the middle”

The Daily Beast summarizes from the Philadelphia Inquirer (subscription required), Knife-Edge Pennsylania GOP Senate Race May Come Down to Party-Despised Mail-In Votes:

When 2 million mail-in ballots carried Joe Biden over the line in Pennsylvania in the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump was the first to cry foul. So what will the former guy say if his favored candidate in the Republican Pennsylvania U.S. Senate primary has to rely on those same mailed-in votes to eke out a victory?

As of Wednesday morning, former TV doctor Mehmet Oz is neck and neck with hedge funder David McCormick after a night of counting and it looks increasingly likely that the contest will come down to how the mail-in votes pan out, followed by a near-certain automatic recount. As of 2 a.m. Wednesday, Oz was almost 3,000 votes ahead, but McCormick’s camp remained bullish, confident that votes still to come, especially from around Pittsburgh, would favor him.

The Philadeplphia Inquirer reports, About 105,000 mail ballots aren’t yet included in Pa. election results:

There are about 105,000 mail ballots that have not yet been tallied into the public results, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees elections.

There are a number of reasons for mail ballots not yet being counted.

Some of those ballots come from a handful of counties that chose not to count ballots on election day, focusing their attention on running the in-person vote.

Other counties also have uncounted ballots that arrived Tuesday and staffers aren’t getting around to until now. For example, counties lock their mall ballot drop boxes at 8 p.m., the deadline for ballots to be received. Those ballots, securely locked in the drop boxes, are in some cases not picked up until Wednesday.

There are also a number of ballots that will have to be manually adjudicated by county elections officials. Those are ballots that have some question about whether they should count, such as if a voter returns a ballot to the wrong drop box.

Of the 105,000 mail ballots, it’s not clear how many are from registered Democrats and how many are from Republicans. Republicans have largely avoided voting by mail, with Democrats making up about three times the number of mail ballots as Republicans. (Of course, not every mail ballot returned will actually be counted, as some will be rejected for reasons such as being unsigned or not having an inner secrecy envelope.)

Acting Secretary of State: Should know by Tuesday whether Senate GOP race will go to a recount

Pennsylvania Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman told CNN that by Tuesday she’d have a good sense of whether the state would automatically recount votes in the Senate GOP race.

“Unofficial returns come to me on Tuesday, so I’ll have a very good sense,” she told anchor Kate Bolduan.

If there will be a recount, Chapman would issue an advisory Wednesday, May 25, then officially order the recount Thursday.

Pennsylvania’s recount laws call for an automatic recount if the margin separating candidates is less than half of one percent.

Since its implementation in 2004, it’s been used six times, Chapman said.

”We’ve never had a change in the outcome of the election,” she said of those six recounts.

She also noted a candidate can waive the option of a recount, though that seemed unlikely in the race where both Mehmet Oz and David McCormick have said they believe they will win.

Chapman also said ballots are still being counted in Lancaster County, where there was a misprinting error impacting 22,000 ballots.

She said the primary election was “very smooth.”

”Voters can feel confident that election officials are making sure every vote is counted and that Pennsylvania’s voices can be heard at the ballot box.”

Whoever is declared the winner is illegitimate! Election fraud! Audit the election! Seize the ballots and voting machines! Call in the My Pillow Dude and the Cyber Ninjas Dude! Storm the state capitol building in Harrisburg! Second Amendment remedies … it’s our 1776!

Effin’ freaks. I hope they destroy one another.

UPDATE: White Christian Nationalist insurrecionist, QAnon cult member, and election denier Trump fluffer Doug Mastriano won the GQP nomination for Governor. This guy is a serious head case. What does this say about Pennsyltucky Republicans? Doug Mastriano, Far-Right Election Denier, Wins Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Primary:

Doug Mastriano, the far-right state senator who attended the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and has been at the center of efforts to overturn the fair results of the 2020 presidential election, won the Republican primary for governor in Pennsylvania on Tuesday — raising the prospect of an insurrectionist being governor of a key battleground state for the 2024 presidential contest.

Mastriano led the nine-person field with just over 40% of the vote on Tuesday when NBC News and The Associated Press called the race. He was beating his closest opponent, former U.S. Congressman Lou Barletta, by almost 20 points.

He received a boost three days before the election from former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Mastriano and thanked him for his commitment to the Big Lie that Trump didn’t lose to President Joe Biden.

Mastriano is committed to stealing the election for Donald Trump in 2024 if he runs again.

After Biden’s victory was certified in Pennsylvania in November 2020, Mastriano introduced a resolution that would have had the Republican-controlled state legislature overturn the results  [the bogus “Independent State Legislature doctrine” pushed by insurrectionist lawyer John Eastman] — Biden won there by 80,000 votes — and instead appoint electors who would declare Trump the winner [the fake GQP elector coup plot scheme].

The resolution failed but further endeared Mastriano to the world of MAGA and to Trump himself, with whom Mastriano claims to be in regular contact.

If Mastriano beats Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro in the fall, he will wield enormous control over the key swing state’s electoral process in 2024. The Pennsylvania governor appoints the secretary of state, who then runs statewide elections.

Mastriano has said he has a candidate already selected and told [insurrectionist coup plotter] Steve Bannon on a podcast recently that it’s a “a voting reform-minded individual who’s been traveling the nation and knows voting reform extremely well.” He has not named the potential nominee.

He should have to name names.

Maybe he is talking about that huckster, V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, involved in the Arizona Senate’s GQP sham “fraudit,” who still falsely claims that he invented email. Laying Out All The Evidence: Shiva Ayyadurai Did Not Invent Email. His analysis for the Arizona GQP sham “fraudit” was a complete joke. ‘Audit’ expert Shiva Ayyadurai didn’t understand election procedures. He made a number of false signature claims.

Or maybe he is talking about that other huckster involved in the Arizona Senate’s GQP sham “fraudit,” Jovan Pulitzer. Jovan Pulitzer’s fraud claims are ‘utter rubbish,’ fellow ‘audit’ researcher told the Arizona Senate.

He can’t possibly be talking about the Cyber Ninjas Dude and QAnon conspiracy theorist, Doug Logan, who conducted the Arizona Senate’s GQP sham “fraudit.” Election Experts Call Cyber Ninjas’ Arizona Audit Findings ‘Laughable,’ Say Company Lied.

Mastriano’s commitment to the Big Lie led him to organize buses of supporters in Pennsylvania to travel to Washington, D.C., for the “Stop the Steal” rally that exploded into the deadly storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Video footage later unearthed by online researchers showed him walking toward the Capitol shortly after protesters removed a police barricade blocking them. Mastriano claims to have never entered the Capitol itself and released a statement denouncing the day’s violence.

The House committee investigating the insurrection subpoenaed Mastriano in February, seeking documents related to his effort to appoint electors and to question him over his involvement in the events of Jan. 6.

Mastriano is a key figure in Christian nationalism, the insurgent movement that holds the anti-democratic belief that America is a nation by and for Christians in need of saving from secular, satanic forces so that its laws can reflect a far-right interpretation of scripture.

“The forces of darkness are hitting us really hard right now; we’re going to bring the state back to righteousness; this is our day, our hour to take our state back and renew the blessings of America,” Mastriano said at a rally last month. He has also spoken at an event whose organizers pledged to “reestablish the kingdom of God in PA.”

Republican Party leaders fear Mastriano is too extreme to beat Shapiro in November’s general election. [One would hope, from a still sane electorate.] The Democrat is making that bet himself: Earlier this month, he released ads designed to help Mastriano in his primary, seeing him as a more beatable opponent than other Republicans.